May Issue 1999

In what will surely be remembered as one of the biggest victories in the history of the Catholic League, Disney CEO Michael Eisner bowed to pressure by putting the squeeze on Miramax co-chairman, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, effectively telling them that the Disney/Miramax label will not appear on the new anti-Catholic movie, "Dogma." Miramax faxed its [...]

An anti-Catholic group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, held a public celebration in San Francisco on Easter Sunday. It did so with the approval of city officials and over the objections of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Catholic League and Catholics for Truth and Justice; the latter is a local group of activists. When the [...]

William A. Donohue African-Americans have the NAACP, Jews have the ADL and feminists have NOW. Hispanics, Asians and Muslims are organized, as are many other segments of society, including homosexuals (gays have GLAAD). Catholics, of course, have the Catholic League. In each case, these groups have found it necessary to combat bigotry by establishing a civil [...]

by Deal W. Hudson Crisis Magazine Editor & Publisher In spite of the success of the Catholic League, two questions need to be answered: 1) Why is Catholic bashing is the only acceptable prejudice left in the United States? 2) Why do Catholics continue to put up with it? So I decided to put these question to [...]

In late March, the Catholic League learned that the Clinton administration was moving quickly to resurrect the nomination of James Hormel as Ambassador to Luxembourg. On March 30, we released a statement to the press stating our long-standing objection: it is not Mr. Hormel’s sexual orientation that we find objectionable (we have never opposed any nominee [...]

On March 28, at the 10th annual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Awards, the best Off Off Broadway honor went to the anti-Christian play by Paul Rudnick, "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told." William Donohue took note of this award with a news release to the media: "If the Catholic League had given an award [...]

In the January-February edition of Catalyst, we ran a story that described how a British publisher, Cadogan, released a travel book that contained a particularly nasty description of the Vatican. We registered an objection to this gratuitous slam and have now learned that forthcoming editions of the volume will be revised. We are pleased with this [...]

Dozens of organizations recently took out an ad in the New York Times opposing school choice. Among them, curiously, were many labor unions. We wrote them, received some responses, and are still confused. Par for the course.

On March 24, Catholics for a Free Choice, headed by Frances Kissling, announced that it was starting a postcard campaign asking organizations to write to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting that he review the Vatican’s non-member state permanent observer status. Kissling objects to the Holy See’s status because of the Vatican’s opposition to abortion. She [...]

On Tuesday, March 16, the day before St. Patrick’s Day, Planned Parenthood of Connecticut distributed green condoms at the state Capitol in Hartford. The condoms read, "Kiss Me I’m Irish," "Put on the Green," and "Four Leaf Cover." State Senator Louis DeLuca has called for an investigation into how the state chapter of Planned Parenthood spends [...]